November 16, 2011

Utah AG is proving to be just another liar

I can no longer support a liar. The man has done a fair amount for our state and our country, but there are some lines that must remain uncrossed. He took the battle against Obamacare to their doorstep. He’s upheld Utah’s preemption statute vs the Universities. He’s done a lot more and I appreciate it, but there are some things I just can’t tolerate. One of those things is a liar.

I take exception to this piece. There are two really glaring pieces that stick out for me. First is THE LIE.

Gun sales along the border are exploding because it is illegal to privately possess most firearms in Mexico. Organized criminals are using high-power, military-grade weapons which pose a serious threat to the rule of law in Mexico. These weapons played a major role in the slaughter of 40,000 people there in the past five years. About 95 percent of weapons recovered from murders in Mexico were traced to the U.S. We warned that these weapons would be used against officials in our country.

The 90% figure has been proven time and time and time again to be a flat out lie. They take it a step further with 95%. Really, that 5% is academic (see below). It’s a SMALL lie in that case… except when it’s an 87% difference.

According to the GAO report, some 30,000 firearms were seized from criminals by Mexican authorities in 2008. Of these 30,000 firearms, information pertaining to 7,200 of them (24 percent) was submitted to the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) for tracing. Of these 7,200 guns, only about 4,000 could be traced by the ATF, and of these 4,000, some 3,480 (87 percent) were shown to have come from the United States.

This means that the 87 percent figure relates to the number of weapons submitted by the Mexican government to the ATF that could be successfully traced and not from the total number of weapons seized by Mexican authorities or even from the total number of weapons submitted to the ATF for tracing. In fact, the 3,480 guns positively traced to the United States equals less than 12 percent of the total arms seized in Mexico in 2008 and less than 48 percent of all those submitted by the Mexican government to the ATF for tracing. This means that almost 90 percent of the guns seized in Mexico in 2008 were not traced back to the United States.

Got that? Doesn’t look like 90% to me and CERTAINLY not 95%.

The second piece is this:

Right now the ATF needs support to stop “straw buyers,” those who are paid to make illegal gun purchases for gun traffickers or cartels. U.S. state attorneys general have been meeting and collaborating for years with Mexican state attorneys general on border security and have been cross-training law enforcement and prosecutors. We have asked them to attack the flood of drugs and people being smuggled into the U.S. and they have pleaded with us to stem the flow of guns smuggled into Mexico. Mexican President Felipe Calderon gave this same urgent message to President Obama and Congress.

Fast and Furious was their ‘attempt’ at stopping straw buyers by going after the head of the snake. Except they couldn’t follow the snake across the border. And they couldn’t watch the snake from our side of the border. And they had no plan on how to even try to do this… and Agent Terry is now dead.

I called out Mr. Shurtleff on this. Here’s the conversation.

Regarding that last DM on Twitter: It sure looks awful familiar. Oh, I know. ReasonedDiscourse.

There’s another line in the Salt Lake Tribune article that I want to reference.

ATF has also been invaluable by providing evidence to state authorities.

Got that? The ATF has been invaluable by providing evidence to state authorities. Looks like we see where he got his 95% figure from. How convenient.

Later in the article, he also blames Congress for doing crazy things like… demanding that they knock it off. The nerve of those people!

At any rate, I got ticked off in the Twitter conversation so I wanted to clear some things up and apologize for being pissed off in the first place, so I turned to Facebook. I’ve been ‘friends’ with Mr. Shurtleff for a long time, so this was easy. I’ve even talked with him (briefly) in the past, but nothing formal. Just another constituent talking to an elected leader.

I am @AntiTango. I’ve also been a supporter of yours until that recent article. The 90-95% number is a lie. You are right, 5% is academic, but not with it’s 92%. The ATF themselves have said that only 8% of recovered guns have traced back to licensed US Firearms dealers. When you support lies coming from the same department that is being ran by Mr. Holder, someone that’s perjured himself in front of Congress, then the statistics garnered from those lies are no more valid than those from your average Main Stream Media outlet. http://pjmedia.com/blog/testimony-on-assault-weapons-guts-obamas-90-percent-lie/

Mr. Shurtleff, I still support most things that you do. I’ve done a lot that I am a fan of, such as setting the U straight when they tried to ban firearms. What you’re doing apologizing for the ATF is terrible, however. There can be no possible benefit to the citizens of Utah. The law abiding citizens are supposed to be those that you are looking out for. I understand that your real job is to protect those that are for the state government, but since they work for us, we should be in that equation.

The people do not like being lied to. That is all that the DoJ and the ATF have done. First, they denied F&F ever happened. Then they denied knowledge of it past their Phoenix office. Then they denied it past the ATF itself. Now they have admitted that they’ve had notice of it all the way to the top.

When the US Citizens as a whole started losing all reliability in that branch, they turned around and said “It’s not our fault, it’s because there’s no gun control where it needs to be.”

Mr. Shurtleff, these are not things I’m making up. I apologize for the foul language contained in URLs themselves.

I also want to apologize for coming across like an a-hole. It wasn’t my intention to sound quite like that, but it was said so I apologize.

I also served 7 years and was honorably discharged as a US Marine. Because I stepped on those yellow footprints, graduated, and faithfully served my country, grants me all of the respects of the title Marine that I earned and will carry until the end of time. The term ‘Devil Dog’ is a term that Marines earned during World War I against German troops. They said the Marines fought like “Dogs from Hell” or Teufel Hunden, loosely translated as Devil Dogs. It is a term that is used solely by Marines. When used in the context you initially used it in, it’s berating and can ONLY be used by a senior ranked US Marine. It’s denigrating if used the way you used it. I was angry to start with, but that was another button that I allowed to be pushed.

Please re-read the first Direct Message from twitter that you posted to me and you’ll see what I mean.

So far, I’ve had no response.

I’m still waiting, Mr. Shurtleff. You’re an apologist when it comes to F&F and no better than the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Ownership when it comes to citizen firearms ownership.